Eight people escape house fire in Marsden, south of Brisbane

EIGHT people - three generations of one family - were lucky to escape a fire that tore through their rental home in Brisbane's south around 1.30am Wednesday.

The cream weatherboard house on Leanne St was blackened by flames that almost gutted the Marsden property before firefighters arrived.

This morning, it is a waterlogged wreck.

Scrambling from the house soon after the alert was raised, a grandmother, her two sons and four grandchildren stood on the road opposite, watching as orange flames destroyed almost all their possessions.

They told neighbour Bob O'Brien the items were uninsured.

"They've lost everything, everything," Mr O'Brien said.

"Just looking at the flames I'd say there'd not be a thing that they'd get out of there."

Two of the family members, including a three-year-old, were taken to hospital and treated for smoke inhalation.

Others are believed to have gone to stay with family at Crestmead.

Mr O'Brien, who was woken by the sound of an explosion which caused his own house to shudder, said the family had lived in the house for three or four years.

He said the grandchildren would swim in his pool in the summer and their father liked to "tinker" with the family's cars, which this morning were parked haphazardly on the grass where they had been pushed to safety away from the flames.

The vehicles would appear to be some of the family's few remaining possessions.

"They were only renting but all the stuff she's had over the years, there'd be kids photos and her kids' photos and grand kids photos and all those sorts of things. They'll be gone now, it cant be salvaged, that kind of stuff," Mr O'Brien said.

Firefighters have not yet determined the cause of the blaze, which is believed to have started underneath the two-storey home.

Earlier, it was reported that a three-year-old child was one of two people taken to hospital for treatment after a fire tore through a house in Brisbane's south overnight.

Eight people were thought to be in the house on Leanne St, Marsden when a fire, initially thought to have started underneath the house, took hold around 1.30am.

It is understood that three people sleeping downstairs were woken by the fire and managed to rouse the other fiev occupants upstairs before anyone became trapped.

A Department of Community Safety spokeswoman said the two-storey house was "well-involved" in fire by the time crews arrived.

"It's damaged the floor and the structural integrity of the house," she said.

"Two patients were transported to Logan Hospital for smoke inhalation."